Cabinets!

Thanks to friend Jay for helping me put these up - I've wanted laundry room cabinets since I moved in 5 years ago, and now here they are! Mr. Fluffy Face also approves!

Interesting video

Warning - social and political commentary ahead...

17 Again

With the rainy day yesterday, Erin and I decided to go see a movie, and settled on "17 Again" - Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, and our favorite "Buffy" sister Michelle Trachtenberg. I'd say it was refreshingly good and funny - probably not one I'd see over and over, but they didn't use "cheap" humor to get laughs, and it had a little something for everyone - love, drama, geek, and sports.

Next week starts the big wave of blockbuster movies though - "X-Men: Origins" (5/1), "Star Trek 11" (5/8), "Terminator: Salvation" (5/22), and then "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" (6/26 - ok, this one might suck), "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (7/17), and "G.I. Joe - The Rise of Cobra" (8/7 - ok this one might suck too, but hey it's G.I. Joe!). Erin and I were commenting during the previews last night, that there is apparently no creativity left in Hollywood, as nearly every movie is a remake or reboot - including the upcoming remake of "Fame" and "Footloose". While it's kind of fun to relive our old favorites, it would also be fun to have some new favorites!

Garden Party

Yesterday being the nice day that it was, we started work clearing space for our forthcoming garden. After a trip to Home Depot and Menards to pick up fence supplies, we go to work digging and ripping up sod. A much harder job than it looks...we really only got about halfway done. (pictured are Erin and friend Chris who was helping, after they conquered a row of sod)

My jazz band also had a gig last night and I got to play out at the International Event Center by the airport - always a nice to play - and the Knights of Columbus was a very great group to play for - lots of people out dancing and enjoying themselves.

The rain, while much needed (I'm not complaining!) has put a damper on the garden work for today, so we're taking today to make a trip to the recycling/waste center to do some spring cleaning, and hopefully put up two cabinets in the laundry room that have been sitting here for two weeks.

Call before you dig

I am really impressed with the number of things that have gone online now - we are digging a garden and replanting a couple of trees, and in Minnesota you have to call "Gopher State One Call" so that they mark where all your utilities are buried (so you don't dig into a gas line or something!). I went to the website today to get the phone number and see what I need to do, and they have this simple little form you fill out and get an e-mail confirmation. All done. Nice.

Wedding!

Shelley & Ryan's Wedding

(photo album)

Saturday morning, Erin and I headed to Waukon, IA, to the much-anticipated Kubitz/Mahannah wedding. This wedding has been over a year in the making, and Shelley and Ryan being close friends, we've got to see the whole process unfold. Additionally, I had the honor of being the HEAD usher (keeping Shelley's 3 nephews in check :)

Before heading to Iowa, we (mostly Erin) cleaned up the downstairs bathroom and prepared it for a one-day kitty jail cell for Mr. Fluffy Face - he has been doing his business in places he shouldn't be, and based on advice from several friends and the vet, we got him his own litter box and put him in the bathroom while we were gone so that he could get used to it. (We think it worked, so far anyway).

Off to Iowa - I missed two turns on the way down but nothing critical. Arriving in Rossville, IA about 12:45, I headed downstairs and changed into my tuxedo. (tuxes are GREAT! I wish I could wear one all the time!) After several rounds of pictures, chatting with friends and family, the moment had arrived. Myself and the nephews escorted people to their seats, the grandparents and parents were escorted in, and nephew Kyle and I rolled out the "white carpet" that Shelley and her dad walked down. What a wonderful wedding - a beautiful little small town church, lots of friends and family, a wonderful singer, and just an all-around great day.

The reception was equally well-done. I always look forward to smaller town weddings because usually the food is mostly home-grown and this was no exception. One particular great idea was that they had cheese curds as appetizers - whoever came up with that one was brilliant! Special bottles of wine that everyone who wanted one could have, with a special S&R label. Little candy bags the kids could fill up with candy of their choice, and glow bracelets for the kids (I love the idea of having something special for all the kids to play with!) Open bar complete with a starting keg of Leinie's and anything else you could think of, and a wonderful meal complete with pulled turkey and pork, salad, bacon green beans, and dinner rolls. AND THEN, later in the evening at 10pm for those who were still there, a full compliment of delivered pizza for a snack. Kudos to Shelley, Ryan, and their parents for such great planning - they know how to put on a party!

We stayed with friends Paul & Anne (and Lukas) at "Grandma's Attic", a suite of two rooms, kitchen, and living room, wonderfully decorated and well-kept up. This morning we had breakfast at the S and D cafe, and all had great big breakfasts that came to $25 total for the 4 of us (gotta love small-town cafes). After dropping off the tux and saying a last goodbye to everyone, we headed out, making a quick stop in Decorah for coffee (a little adventure finding a coffee shop but well worth it) and headed home to release Mr. FF from kitty jail.

Mouse overboard

I went to clean the cat box and fill their water dish and found that Madame Sparkles decided to drown her favorite toy mouse in the water dish. I'm not really sure what to think of this...

The neighbors with the big fluffy white dog have their house for sale...I'll miss the big fluffy white dog.

I helped friend Michael with a bunch of Linux issues today (and a couple weeks ago) and got two cases of good beer in return...so I got to geek out and got beer, I think I got the good end of the deal :)

Found a 24 oz stainless steel spill-/drip-proof coffee travel mug at Bed Bath & Beyond today...I think I've found the holy grail of coffee mugs.

FYI, grocery shopping the day before Easter is bad :(

But tomorrow is Easter - I'll be at church from 8am-12pm, but it will be fun. And then gourmet dinner with mom and Erin!

Do re mi

A more fun video than yesterday...thanks to friend Bill for this one!

Hair

I have to say I love to get a haircut - just feels so great to get rid of hair :)

Last night I played at my 3rd-to-last show of "Hello Dolly" - there are actually 6 more shows left total (today, Saturday, and then next weekend Thur-Sun) but I'm only doing two more of them. For those of you who have never seen "Hello Dolly" or gone to a show at the Rochester Civic Theater, I highly recommend this one - I've heard many long-time show-goers and season ticket holders say this is possibly the best show the Civic Theater has ever put on. It is really entertaining.

Tonight, we're going to attempt to go to the new Whiskey Creek restaurant/bar with friends. Saturday I'm going to help one of my friends with Linux (a topic I LOVE to talk about and share!) and Sunday is the big Easter celebration day at church and then afternoon Easter dinner with mom and Erin.

Oh and my Nintendo DS of 3 years started randomly shutting down while playing games the other day...I was excited to see so many good forum posts about how good and fast Nintendo's customer service is, and they probably are good and fast, but not cheap...$85 to fix it ($75 + $10 shipping). A new one costs $129. You do the math...

Hmmm...

I generally stay away from posting too much politically-oriented stuff, but wow...



Yes, sadly it is always your right to hate someone for whatever reason you choose. Sigh. Yes, sadly it is a parent's right to teach their kids to fear and hate people who aren't like them. Sigh. And it is and always will be the right of a church to teach hate, fear, and discrimination based on beliefs if they so choose. Sigh. It's not a right to discriminate against US citizens in employment, housing, etc. and it's not a right for groups that are funded by US government funds to discriminate against certain groups US citizens.

I thought that with the election being over this would die down for a bit. But I can see it's going to continue to be a wedge issue for years to come, used almost solely to win elections.

I also find it interesting how, with the Vermont legislature passing a marriage equality amendment, and THEN overriding the governor's veto, that now all the opponents are pinning the blame not just on "activist" judges, but now legislatures are evil too I guess, and everything must be decided by the people through referendum. Well why do we even have a legislature, elected by the people, then? Why don't we just vote on everything - eliminate the middle man? I'd actually argue that a governor, one single person, shouldn't have the power to veto something passed by a majority of citizen-elected representatives.

I can't wait until a state passes something like this through a citizen-voted-on referendum, because then they'll be out political processes to blame marriage equality on...

Game Room update

Not a huge update, but with some of the deals on electronics out there, decided it was worth having another good TV to use with all the game systems. So, last night got a Samsung LN32A550P3F to replace the bedroom TV, and moved the bedroom TV to the game room. The games do look better :)



May get another update later today, as we're going to go look at shelves.

Also, a picture of our seedlings which hopefully soon (get warmer weather!) will become the garden:


More "Hello Dolly" tonight and tomorrow afternoon.

Iowa

I had honestly forgotten this was all going on in Iowa:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30027685

and, my apologies to Iowa, but I expected the Iowa Supreme Court to at a minimum use some legal equivalent of "it's not up to use to rule on this" sort of thing. I certainly did not expect them to unanimously rule to uphold the lower court ruling (I do see that the legal argument here was different than Massachusetts and California for example, and I believe it made it easier for the court to rule on).

I expect to see a defense of marriage amendment to the Iowa constitution on the ballot in 2010, so this might be short-lived, but for the moment, it looks like I would be as free as my friends Shelley and Ryan to get married in Shelley's hometown now :)